He’s back.

After a five-year hiatus, veteran Whitefish politician Andy Feury is once again in the running for a seat on the Whitefish City Council.

Feury spent the better part of two decades working on city issues, first as a council member and later as mayor. Under his leadership the city completed myriad community projects, ranging from The Wave fitness center and Armory Park community center to development of bike trails around Whitefish.

“I missed it,” Feury said of city government. “I did it for so many years it does get in your blood. It’s pretty exciting getting involved in making good things happen for the community.”

Above all else, Feury said he always has loved the process of local government and believes most people are able to put their ideology aside in favor of a pragmatic approach to what’s best for Whitefish.

Feury said the historical perspective he can bring to the council is a unique quality among the candidates.

He cut his last mayoral term short when his company embarked on a joint venture to start a new factory in China. He resigned as mayor in August 2007 because the business deal required him to spend more time in China. He’s in charge of production and business development for Western Pacific Plastics, a producer of laminate film and component parts for furniture and the trophy and awards industry.

While Feury still spends time in China on business — currently about four to five trips a year for a week to 10 days at a time — he said his travel won’t significantly impact his ability to help govern the city. He may miss a meeting or two a year, he said, adding that serving on the council doesn’t involve as much time as being mayor.

Feury is heavily involved in working to protect the water quality of Whitefish Lake. He’s the chairman of the city’s Community Wastewater Committee that was created to draft a wastewater management plan aimed at addressing failing septic systems within the Whitefish jurisdiction.

“My concerns are pretty great,” he said about a Whitefish Lake Institute study released last year that confirmed pollution in Whitefish Lake due largely to failing septic systems. “We’ve known problems exist in some places on the lake for 30 years. We are at a tipping point.”

Annexing areas around the lake and putting those homes on city sewer “just makes sense,” Feury said.

“A lot of those property owners should’ve been annexed already,” he said. “They’re wholly surrounded” by city property.

Feury said he can see the benefits of creating a nonmotorized corridor on the Whitefish River through the city to Montana 40, but doesn’t see motorized boat traffic on the river as a huge problem currently. Once the water level drops in late summer, motorized watercraft traffic declines as well, “so if we did do it [create a nonmotorized zone], it wouldn’t impact that many people,” he said.

Such a proposal may make more sense as more segments of trail along the river are completed, he said.

Feury sees the parking deficit as one of the biggest issues facing downtown businesses.

“It’s tricky with any resort community,” he said. “You only need lots of parking for certain months of the year, but we have to gear to those peak visitor periods.”

Given the amount of adverse public opinion for the parking garage approved in conjunction with construction of a new City Hall, Feury said the proposed update of the downtown master plan that recommends up to three parking structures some day may be a tough sell.

The heavy use of Depot Park needs to be addressed in a way that can create the necessary infrastructure without limiting the use of the city’s centerpiece of green space, Feury said.

“It seems there should be a way from an engineering or landscape [architect] perspective to address this,” he said.

Feury was mayor when the city and Flathead County approved the original interlocal agreement giving Whitefish planning control in the two-mile “doughnut” around the city, and he was still mayor in March 2007 when the relationship between the city and the county began to fray over Whitefish’s proposal to impose more regulatory control of the doughnut.

If elected, Feury still will be dealing with the doughnut.

“It appears to be irreconcilable differences and that’s unfortunate,” he said. “We need to work on it and figure something out.”

Feury pointed out that the city has had a hand in making planning and zoning decisions beyond its borders for more than 50 years, and that joint planning benefits everyone.

“Look at Whitefish today. The fact is, we have what we have due to extraterritorial planning,” he said.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.